Recently, it became clear to me that I was not walking the talk.  That as a marketer, I was using excuses like: “I spend my days marketing others” and “I am very fortunate that I get so many referrals, so I don’t need to be marketing myself.”  But then, it occurred to me I couldn’t ask other folks to be investing their time to doing email marketing, blogging and social media, if I was putting it on the back burner, myself.

I understand how hard it is to find time, and how easy it is to ‘do it later’.  So, to help me, as well as all of you reading this, I have decided to start back to the basics, not only to give me a fresh start, but also to help all of you learn during my process.

To get started, I am going to have to make sure I know my intended audience. Then I can create an editorial calendar, which will keep me more focused on blogging several times a month, mentioning those blog posts on appropriate social media outlets, and then wrap each month up with an email recap.

I currently mention a lot of great articles in my status updates on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, so I will continue doing that, as well.  The articles are ones which inspire my/your business, offer insights on cool new tools (from a new WordPress plugin to a time management app), and bring new ideas on how to communicate my/your meaningful difference.

So, how to get started (or re-energized) and accomplish the goal of understanding my intended audience better?

First, I need to do the first thing I have my prospective clients do.  Answer some questions about who my audience is, what they really want/need from me, and where my business is at with its current marketing efforts.

Why don’t you do this along with me?  Answer the questions for your own business…

I have a list of questions that I tend to start with, and sometimes I have to ask less of them, because the client makes it easy by being clear up front.  Other times, I have to dig deeper.

Here is the first (and yes, obvious) question that helps me know whether the client has put thought into what they say when folks ask them what they do.  Though the question is obvious, it really makes it clear how well the client knows their own audience:

Describe your company – what is your Elevator Speech? (an elevator speech is a short – very short – statement you can say to folks ‘between floors in an elevator’, to explain what you do, and whether they or someone they know can benefit from finding out more).

Here is a bad elevator speech, I should know, I used it my first year out: “I can do any kind of marketing you need.  What are you looking for?”

This was bad because most people don’t really know what marketing is – they might think it is sales, public relations, or marketing research (calling folks to ask their opinion on a product).  I don’t really do those tasks, though I have and could, I really did not want to be doing ‘those things’.  And, yet, I was telling them I could do anything.  Also, what I found was though it was an open ended question, when I asked them what they were looking for, they usually didn’t know.  If they wanted anything from me, it was help to figure out why they would need me.  I was not being clear with my own marketing message.

Here is a better elevator speech: “I help people build their complete online presence: blogging, email marketing, social media…  Since my forte is marketing, I also create or redesign websites (using WordPress) with the goal to make it easier for your visitors to get the info they want.”

Though I don’t always say it exactly like that, I can state something to that effect in about 14 seconds.  At which point, people either say, they have been considering one or another of these activities, they know someone else who is looking for help with marketing, they don’t know what social media really is or they just heard about WordPress and have a question.

Sometimes, they tell me they have no interest in Twitter, or some other site, and I get to ask what it is that they don’t like. And we begin to have a great conversation.

On occasion, they say they know someone else who offers similar services and then I can ask who the person is – because I may either know them or may find someone new to align with (I’m always open to talk with folks who are doing similar things – as I’ve found often its more complimentary than competition).

However they respond, at least they are responding. I don’t get that blank stare I used to get from my old conversation ’stopper’, where I was leaving it up to them to tell me what they didn’t know they needed.

Anyway, getting back to the questions I ask, I’ve provided a link to download UniqueThink’s New Client Questionnaire.  This way, you can quiz yourself on how well you know your own company and why you are doing things you are doing and what you are trying to accomplish with any new marketing goals.  It is a very helpful exercise, so I truly hope you take advantage of this and try it, now.

You can either print it out and ask yourself the questions or call me for a 1-hr free consult, to go over it together.  Again, when I go over these questions with the client, it is to help them figure this all out, as much as it is for me to understand where to go next.  I don’t always ask every client every question.  Sometimes I skip around and sometimes I probe deeper on one specific question.  If you are reading the questionnaire, right now, you may notice, some of the questions are repetitive.  Those are for those times I haven’t felt like I fully gathered the insights I needed to understand the clients goals (or that they haven’t really addressed the goal), with the way the question was originally framed.  And in most cases, I tend to ask 5-8 of the questions and ‘get it’ enough to move to the next step.

Well, that’s enough info to get you started on the first step.  Any questions, yet?  How do you feel about going on this journey with me?  Do you see the value of exploring or re-exploring this (even if you’ve already begun your own marketing efforts)?  Feel free to share your experiences, insights, and more… by commenting below.

Editor’s Note: The video of the Blogging for Biz panel is now available at WordPress.TV – it is also added to the end of this post.
I had a great time at WordCamp Boulder.  Beth J. Hayden – of BloggingWithBeth.com – and Jim Turner – of OneByOneMedia.com – shared the Blogging for Business Panel with me (Bethany Siegler of UniqueThink).  I heard there was video of it, so I won’t repeat much of what was discussed.  And once I find it, I’ll link to it.  In the meantime, I did want to add to the conversation we started about what types of businesses should be blogging.

It has long been my belief that ANY company CAN benefit from blogging.  As a panel we came up with the following, as some of the top reasons to consider blogging for your own biz:

1. Get found online
2. Build a community of people who trust your company will take care of and listen to them
3. Communicate your meaningful difference, to let folks see how your products/services help resolve their situation

When our panel was asked if blogging was REALLY for every type of business, there was a discussion about whether a Dry Cleaner could truly build a successful blog.  My response: “YES, definitely!” and then I think I gave a few examples off the top of my head, like Green Cleaning Pros OR Cons.  I could come up with tons of post ideas people would like to read, there are endless topics, like treating your garment when the stain first occurs TO how to care for that antique quilt you inherited from Great Aunt Sally.

Then, to prove my theory about ANY business benefiting from blogging, I offered the audience an extreme example of a business blog. I was once in a conversation where someone asked, “Is it appropriate for a Mortician to have a business blog?”  And, to me there is no question, YES!, so I gave a quick example of a possible topic to the WordCamp audience.  Not everyone might be interested in that specific topic I mentioned, but if done correctly the overall blog could offer readers a great deal of trust and a level of comfort when picking out a funeral home.

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t want to take the time to talk about what we already talked about at WordCamp (but you can find the video, if you want to hear the whole panel discussion.  And, if you do find the video before me, please let me know!).  For the rest of this post, I’d like to focus on how blogging can be good for every kind of business:

Now, when I say ANY company can benefit from a blog, I have to state the conversation Beth and I had after the panel.  We both agreed we should have stated:

There is one ‘type’ of company who should not blog: A company who is NOT willing to make the commitment to blogging

However, what does that mean?  What is ‘the commitment to blogging’?  The commitment is about figuring out why you should be blogging and coming up with a strategy to make it happen.  And then, making it happen!

Below are some tips to get you started:

• Understand the purpose of your blog.  Determine what you want your company and, most importantly, your readers to get out of the conversations. For instance, here are some good reasons to want to blog (you should want to do more than less of these):
  • Answer Frequently Asked Questions: Let people get to know your product/service better
  • Get visitors familiar with the company’s philosophy: Helps to assure it’s aligned with the customers’ needs
  • Encourage Involvement: Gets the customers’ to take actions, like commenting, to build a community and even share insights and ideas to help others
  • Become a thought leader in the industry: Share your knowledge of the overall industry, not just your products place in it
  • Learn from your clients:  Listening to what your readers have to say can help to create future services and products they want, instead of what you assume they might want
  • Engage with your community: Having a blog is a great way to get to know your customers’ better.  The more back and forth dialogue, the better
• Lay out a successful, effective and easily maintainable strategy:
  • Decide who will be contributing or better yet, ask the staff which portion of the following tasks they might be good at helping with: content manager, editor (if needed), writers, researchers, media/arts department (don’t worry if you are all of the above – there are always tools to help)
  • Figure out how frequently you want content added and if that is a realistic goal, with staffs’ other obligations – you can always adjust, but don’t overload at first, or it may never happen
  • Determine the appropriate tools (WordPress is at the top of that list)
  • Plan an editorial calendar – just like the newspapers and magazines do.  This does not mean you can only write when something is on the calendar – it just makes it easier to know when some important dates or material needs to be added.  But go ahead and blog on a whim, if you have something of interest to share!
  • Set realistic goals, maybe you are unable to blog as often as you’d like, but when you do, it is great content!  Or maybe you only have time to do short posts summarizing things you read somewhere else, instead of heavily researched articles prepared in-house.  As long as it is relevant and informative, that is fine!
• Follow through, start your blog and make sure to maintain it!

Please keep in mind, these are just suggestions, and they can be tailored to work for any company.  Maybe instead of you writing the content in-house, you hire a copywriter.  Or maybe you go to the local college and get an intern, if your budget is tight.

As far as a ‘type of business’, there really aren’t any businesses that I can think of who could not benefit from a blog.  If you have a business and don’t think your readers would be interested in reading your blog, why not give me a chance to brainstorm an idea or two, by commenting below.  And if you just want to challenge me, just name a biz that you don’t think could find material worth blogging about, to their specific audience and let me see if I could come up with a couple of content ideas.  Post your thoughts and challenges in the comment box below…

Watch the Blogging For Biz Panel at WordCamp Boulder: (Note: It is a 45 min video, so may take time to load – and looks like nothing is happening.  If you have issues, you can also go directly to WordPress.TV to view it there, along with the rest of WordCampBoulder).

University of Colorado at Boulder’s Marketing and Creative Services department has partnered with Bethany Siegler of UniqueThink, to offer her WordPress: Managing Content training to select clients. The department will continue its focus on communications planning, web site design, development and usability, while utilizing Bethany’s experience for training clients to maintain content on their sites using the WordPress platform.

Bethany looks forward to working with CU.  She has been doing a similar presentation at Boulder Digital Arts (BDA), which is for the general public.

The next public workshop at BDA is:

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
6PM – 9PM
BDA Arapahoe Studio
1600 Range Street, Suite 100,
Boulder, CO  80301

If you are interested in attending this presentation, please visit the Boulder Digital Art’s Website.

If your organization, association, meeting up group or company is looking for WordPress lecture style or hands on training opportunities, please contact Bethany at UniqueThink to arrange for speaking opportunities.

Update 10/28/099:  This class has been rescheduled, due to snow.  It is now being held on Wed, November 4th.  Same time, same place.

I am doing a Free Workshop (lecture style) on Why to Use WordPress.ORG to build your complete website.

WORDPRESS WEBSITES: How to get a cost-effective, easy to maintain website

NEW DATE: Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
Westminster Public Library, College Hill, 6-7:30 p.m.
3705 West 112th Avenue
Westminster, CO  80031

Here’s the link to Google Maps

Call 303-404-5104 to register for this FREE program.

You need to RSVP – there is limited room, so make sure you call

Here is what I’ll be talking about:

• Get introduced to why WordPress is a great option for any small business to build and maintain their own site.
  • No more expensive graphic designers or waiting on a webmaster to make a simple change on your site.
  • If you have an old static site that isn’t bringing in traffic, or if you’re creating a website for the first time, Wordpress is a great option for any small business.
  • Maintain your own website with this quick, easy and cost-effective tool that grows along with your company.

• What we will be discussing
  • Do you really need a Site AND a Blog for your business?
  • The difference between Blogs and Sites
  • Wordpress.org (not Wordpress.com)
    • It’s Free software (all you need is a hosting service provider and some plugins)
    • Maintain your own site/blog
    • Built in Marketing Advantages
    • A glance at how it works
      • Admin panel, Themes, Plugins and Widgets (what are they)
        • Steps to get started

      This series was coordinated by Dhyan Atkinson, and there are a lot of other great workshops in the series, as well, so go to the library’s website and check them out. Beth Hayden just did a great one on BLOGGING FOR YOUR BUSINESS. And the next one, after mine is Cindy Kalman, talking about GRAPHIC DESIGN IN THE INTERNET AGE.  So, check them all out.

      If you miss any of them, don’t worry, we’ll be doing them again in the new year.  Also, don’t forget I am doing WordPress Workshops at Boulder Digital Arts, as well.

Learn how, and why, to use WordPress for your complete web solution.  Set up and create sites (as well as blogs) using WordPress.org:

Getting Started with WordPress – For Content Creators
Date(s):
Monday, July 06, 2009 | 6pm – 9pm For description and more info, click here

Getting Started with WordPress – Web Developers
Date(s):
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 | 6pm – 9pm For description and more info, click here

Location:
BDA Studio
2510 47th Street, Suite 202, Boulder, CO  80301

Registration and more info available at BoulderDigitalArts.com

OK, many of you have been asking us to do this, and it ends up that due to family circumstances Doug won’t be able to teach his normal WordPress Workshop for Boulder Digital Arts.  So, Angela Bowman and I will be doing it for him.

If you have been wanting to learn how to set up Wordpress.org for yourself, instead of hiring me to do it for you, this is the time and place.

You actually benefit from both Angela and my own experience.  Interestingly, we both took Doug’s class a couple of years before we met each other.  So, when we did meet, we were so excited to find someone else who loved building websites (not just blogs), from the fantastic WordPress tool set.

Anyway, for these classes, you get both of us teaching you all we learned from Doug, originally, plus all we’ve learned since.

So take full advantage of it.  Instead of paying one of us our normal hourly fee, you get both of us for 3 full hours, per class.

There are two options, and taking both classes could be beneficial, depending on your goals.

The first Workshop is for those who want to run the site themselves, to understand the power of Wordpress.org as a content-creation or management tool, plus a review of the marketing advantages of using it.

The other workshop is  for using WordPress.org as a site-building tool ( bit more technical, so it’s geared toward those who want to learn all the nooks and crannies).

There will be a review of plugins during both classes, and some of the content will overlap, so if you have questions on which to take, call me and we’ll figure it out.

Sign Up Now, while there are seats available! Or contact me with any questions

There’s going to be lots of fun information.

Getting Started with WordPress – For Content Creators

Getting Started with WordPress – Web Developers

I spoke at the Denver Coach Federation, last night.  My presentation was called It’s A Blog. It’s A Website. It’s a Marketing Tool…It’s WordPress!

I told everyone I’d give them my slide presentation on why to use WordPress to build your site and blog.  So, here it is in two forms.  One is as a pdf and the other as a slide show.

Whether you were at the event last night or not, feel free to enjoy an introduction to WordPress.  Either download the It’s WordPress pdf or simply view the slide show below:

Here is the download of the It’s WordPress PDF, if that is easier for you!

FYI: The Denver Coach Federation has a great group of folks and it was fun to hear about their individual specialties.

Two of my existing Do-It-Yourself WordPress clients were there, Lee from Retire Your Way, LLC and Mary Lynne from Be Great Teen Coaching, LLC.  Right there, that shows you the range of amazing coaches, from those inspiring the youth to those enlivening life after careers.

Plus I got to meet a bunch of others, including a few who are already setting up their 1 hr free consultations, so that they can take advantage of all the amazing advancements of WordPress.

If you want to learn more about WordPress, either visit their site at WordPress.org or contact me to set up your own free one-hour consultation.

P.S.  A big NOD to Dhyan Atkinson of The Five Essential Skills - who not only gave my name to Barbara of the Denver Coach Federation, but also introduced me to Lee, Mary Lynne and many of my other existing clients.  If you need Essential Business Skills for Your Small Business, contact Dhyan.  And, thanks to Cindy from Kalmarx Design, for the intro to Dhyan.  A great example of how working together within your community can bring about amazing opportunities.  Check out Kalmarx Design, for all your illustration and design needs!  Cindy also has a fun cartoon line called the Optimistic Dog – can’t wait to share that link with you all!

Oh, and let me know what you think of the slide show or if you have questions about WordPress, by commenting below…

OK, I know, I am a WordPress Dork, but really, this thing just keeps getting better and better!

I must admit, when I heard about 2.8, I didn’t expect much. After all, WordPress 2.7.1 did such a great job that I wasn’t missing much, other than the theme uploader. And, with Vladimir Prelovac’s Theme Test Drive plugin, I didn’t even miss that!

So what could WordPress 2.8 have that I’d need? Well watch the video and you’ll see.

If you haven’t watched the video yet, and you are still reading this, I’ll give you a hint of why to install 2.8: (Angela, this one is for you) You really won’t need to open up the FTP for editing php!

If you aren’t coding, that one won’t be too exciting, but then check out the Widgets section. In fact, here, just watch the video. And, if you are as big a dork as me, you’ll be going “No Way! How Cool!” through the whole thing.

Oh, and the nod to jazz is nice, too.

And, if you are as big a WordPress fan (if not a WordPress dork), you may want to check out Inc. Magazine’s “The Way I Work” feature on WordPress visionary Matt Mullenweg.

When it comes to WordPress 2.8, dubbed Baker – after the great Chet Baker – to this dork, it is like the first time I heard Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. I find myself torn between enjoying it quietly on my own and making everyone I can find listen to why it is so great.

If you aren’t familiar with why I love WordPress, check out some of the WordPress based sites I have created or contact me for a free 1-hr consultation of why you should be using it to maintain your own site and/or blog.

Also, feel free to share what you like (or maybe dislike) about WordPress 2.8, by commenting below…

One of my clients who does a lot with videos, Freddy at Atomic Tango, shared this info with me and I had to share it with all of you.

As you’ll see from the video below, WordPress.com is getting into the video hosting business.  What does that mean?  Well, if it means what I believe it does, it means these things:

• You can now host a video at WordPress.com directly – you don’t have to host your own videos somewhere else and then embed them into your own site
• As Freddy points out, you aren’t advertising for some other site, because there doesn’t appear to be a logo – like YouTube puts in the corner of their embedded videos
• Folks can easily share your video by embedding it to their own site (such as self-hosted versions of WordPress.org), as I have done with the below video from VideoPress’s site – which will give you more insights on what tools it includes and why this tool is very interesting, so go ahead and watch that now:

This sounds like a great idea for folks at Wordpress.com.

The biggest downside of things – that I can think of at the moment – is that there isn’t currently a way for Wordpress.org bloggers to directly host using this cool tool, we still have to have a Wordpress.com account, upload it there and embed here. But in most cases you would already have a Wordpress.com account, because you’re probably using Akismet to protect your comments and that is the only place to get your API key. So, you could use that existing account for hosting the videos and embed here. Though that is kind of like hosting it on YouTube – minus their logo presence.

Also, if you aren’t hosting the video at a high traffic site, like YouTube, then you aren’t getting their extra exposure for your video.

So what do you think? If you are using Wordpress.org already, is it worth it to use this new option? Maybe for the sizing and other features listed in the video? Watch the video and let me know your thoughts, by commenting below!

OK, I am trying out a new tool – which is Free and available to anyone looking to do a slide show.

It’s from http://www.slideshare.net/ and you can create your own page there, just like I did. Then set up a Powerpoint presentation. Mine is below, it is one I did a few months ago on Dhyan Atkinson’s Wed Afternoon Teleclass.

My presentation was called It’s A Blog, It’s A Website, It’s A Marketing Tool…It’s Wordpress. It talks about using WordPress as both your blog and your complete website.

Comment below and let me know what you think of both the presentation and the SlideShare site!

Focusing on the possibilities…

Below is a list of Must-Have WordPress plugins:

I will be updating this page with more info, but wanted to get it up and running now, so you can get these plugins up and running now:

Akismet: Spam Filter for your blog comments – here is what they have to say:

Who can? You have better things to do with your life than deal with the underbelly of the internet. Automattic Kismet (Akismet for short) is a collaborative effort to make comment and trackback spam a non-issue and restore innocence to blogging, so you never have to worry about spam again

All-In-One SEO: The ultimate in search engine optimization plugins! Here are their comments about the plugin:

Automatic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) out of the box for your WordPress blog …

This plugin is streamlined for some best practices for WordPress SEO. While it gives you many options the defaults reflect the settings I recommend using.

Google Analyticator Plugin: To me, there is no question, you need Google Analytics for your site stats. It tells you everything other than the visitor’s name and what they were wearing. You’ll know where in the world they are, what type of computer they are using and…most importantly…which of your pages they perused. This plugin allows you, in a few easy steps, to not only add the powerful Google Analytics script to every single page of your site/blog, but also displays results in your dashboard of WordPress! Now that is power! Not that you need to know what they say about it, but here you go:

Google Analyticator adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics logging on any WordPress blog. This eliminates the need to edit your template code to begin logging. Google Analyticator also includes several widgets for displaying Analytics data in the admin and on your blog.

Broken Link Checker: I love this plugin! It is new to me, but one of my favorites already! Too often links go bad, this plugin checks your complete site and lets you know if there are any links that don’t work anymore. Here is what they wrote about it:

Sometimes, links get broken. A page is deleted, a subdirectory forgotten, a site moved to a different domain. Most likely many of your blog posts contain links. It is almost inevitable that over time some of them will lead to a “404 Not Found” error page. Obviously you don’t want your readers to be annoyed by clicking a link that leads nowhere.

FYI: This link checker also checks for images that are now missing! Brilliant!

Here are additional plugins, that you may need:

Exclude Page – If you want to hide pages from your navigational bar, this plugin is great. This is one you may or may not need, depending on the theme (template) you choose. Some theme developers are now including this option for you. Here is what they say about it:

This plugin adds a checkbox, “include this page in menus”, which is checked by default. If you uncheck it, the page will not appear in any listings of pages (which includes, and is usually limited to, your page navigation menus).

ShareThis: A great social media tool.  It lets you give folks a way to help share your posts with the world.  Here is what they have to share about their plugin:

ShareThis makes a WordPress plugin that provides an unobtrusive way for your visitors to post your site content to various social bookmarking sites, or send a link via e-mail & other communication channels (like Facebook and MySpace) to a friend.